15. Busman's Holiday
1102 words. Approximately 5 minutes, 32 seconds. Audio version here.
You know how there’s almost always one person in your friend group that you can’t seem to actually figure out what their job is? Well, that’s me. I’ve long since given up trying to explain what I do, because: one, I work in a somewhat niche industry that most “people on the street” haven’t really ever heard of, and two, my actual job is so nebulous that it’s difficult to put into words exactly how I spend 40 hours of my week every week. So, instead of explaining the whole industry and/or going through a run-down of all of my various responsibilities, I’ll just say, “I work in commercial real estate as an office administrator.” That’s close enough for most people, who then further filter that down to, “Sean works a desk job.”
As a sort of gift to you, my reader, my friend, I will give you the full, long-winded explanation of what I do to make money.
The company that I work for is a virtual office and small office space provider. The small office space thing is pretty easy to explain; my company leases a floor in a building, and we sublease the individual offices on the floor to various small businesses. This allows satellite workers to have an actual office to come in for work, and allows small startups a place to house their employees without spending a ton of money renting out a whole floor, doing a build-out, etc. It’s all very exciting.
I’m making a point to tell you how exciting it is because I can already feel your attention wandering. I promise that this is actually an interesting story and not just something that I put together that I can point to when someone asks, “So, what do you do?”
Anyway, so the other part of what my company does is provide virtual offices, and that’s where people get a little confused. A virtual office basically just means that we accept your mail and you can use our address for your business cards and stuff. We also have some spots where our virtual office clients can meet with their clients. It’s a really cost-effective way for someone who runs their own business out of their home to look like they have an office in a prestigious downtown building.
Some of my friends think that’s a scam. I wouldn’t go that far; most of our clients are legitimate small business owners that don’t need to rent space since they work from home, and just want an address that’s not their home address to give out to clients. Then again, some of our clients are scammers-they’ll use us as gatekeepers of a sort to avoid having to talk to “customers” of theirs that are pissed they got scammed, or they’ll use us a shipping depot to order lots of stuff on a fraudulent credit card and then have us receive it and ship it out of the country. Of course, we don’t allow scammers as clients, but there’s only so much that my personal due diligence can reveal (and honestly, as long as they’re paying us and we’re not getting stuck in the middle of something, it’s not really my business how they use our services).
So now that I’ve explained the basics of the industry, I’ll talk a bit about my actual job. We’re a small business with a staff of three, so I’m responsible for accounts payable, accounts receivable, managing the center, performing administrative work for clients, manning the reception desk and answering phones if necessary, dealing with belligerent clients that have issues with their invoices, performing collections on past due accounts, patching and painting office walls when someone moves out, cleaning carpets, making coffee, stocking our vending area, collecting the vending money and counting it, doing bank deposits… let’s just say the list goes on and on.
‘Okay,’ you’re most likely thinking, ‘so that describes your list of duties, but what do you really do on a day-to-day basis?’ Yeah, you got me. Just because I have a bunch of stuff that is my responsibility doesn’t mean that I have to do all of that stuff every single day. My day-to-day is really just sitting at my desk waiting for the phone to ring or an e-mail to come in, handling it, and then waiting for the next thing. It has its perks (such as allowing me to write pretty much whenever I feel like it), but it’s also kind of boring sometimes. And then there’s the added stress of me being a manager, and the second most senior employee (I’ve been here for around eleven years at this point).
Having been around as long as I have, it seems that I have more intimate knowledge about the operations of our business than pretty much anyone else. I’m the first person everyone comes to with telephone or internet issues, because I’ve demonstrated that I’m the person that knows everything. This is a double-edged sword. I love feeling needed, but I hate when people need things from me all of the time. One of the most annoying things about being so “vital” to the running of the business is that I never take a vacation; after all, clearly the place would burn to the ground if I took a day for myself, right?
And on the times when I do take a vacation (because the business owner forces me), what do I do? Sit around the house and stare at my phone, waiting for e-mails or phone calls to come in so I can handle them (and then getting snarky e-mails from my coworkers saying, “Aren’t you on vacation?” as though they didn’t e-mail me a question that needed an answer immediately).
It’s not my job’s fault, I guess, that I’m such a workaholic. I just have a huge, possibly misplaced, sense of loyalty to this company that has treated me fairly well over the last decade or so, so I like to do everything I can to make everyone else’s life easier. Honestly, I don’t need a vacation! Just let me come in and keep the place running!
Alright, so I think I may have misled you a little bit, my reader, dear sweet friend. I promised you that this was going to be an interesting story, and urged you to keep reading for the inevitable grand payoff that would come from slogging through this mess of technicalities and complaints. But it was never an exciting story; I just wanted to make sure you read it all. I feel a little bad about leading you astray; I really do.
But at this point, you’re already done reading, so I guess live and learn.